Hundreds of doctors have been overcharged on pensions tax, amounting to a total overpayment of £11 million, a Freedom of Information request from Quilter has revealed.
According to the FOI, 413 retired doctors have unnecessarily paid £11,094,979 in Lifetime Allowance Charges.
The LTA is currently frozen at £1,073,000 until April 2026.
However, LTA protections were introduced following reductions in the allowance to help pension savers already valued above certain limits.
One of the most recent protections is Individual Protection 2016, which allows individuals to protect their LTA from £1 million up to £1.25m based on the value of pension benefits at 5th April 2016.
Quilter says the FOI data showed members paid a collective total of £44,379,919 which could have been protected under IPI6, saving them over £11 million.
Impacted members could still apply for IP16 retrospectively and Quilter has raised the issue directly with NHS Business Services Authority to make members aware.
Graham Crossley, NHS pension specialist at Quilter, said: “This Freedom of Information data illustrates how an extremely complicated pension taxation system in the UK can cause significant numbers of doctors to fall through the cracks and ultimately pay much more in pension tax than needed.
“There remain numerous problems surrounding public sector and NHS pensions which desperately need the government’s urgent attention but it’s a pleasure to unearth this opportunity to do some good and help a group of people that have spent their careers helping others.”
Crossley added: “We were really pleased that the NHSBSA team were happy to enter a dialogue with us about how to target this issue.”
